Author: Franz Malten Buemann

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One of the major lessons marketers have learned over the last year is that text-heavy content isn’t enough to generate interest. Visual content is the way forward. There is so much more content available online now. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes—what would they prioritize when there are so many choices? The answer is visual…
The post How to Use Visual Content to Boost Your Customer Base appeared first on Benchmarkemail.

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92% of U.S. workers feel that they could collaborate better with their colleagues.
Managing multiple projects at once, delegating tasks, and collaborating across teams is difficult on a good day — but can become downright impossible when unforeseen obstacles get in the way. The data proves that project management is no walk in the park for most of us.
When that impacts the business, it becomes an even bigger problem. Miscommunication and inefficiencies in your project management process can lead to confusing and stressful experiences for your employees. It can hinder your company’s ability to satisfy your clients’ needs or hit end-of-year goals.
Fortunately, there are plenty of free project management apps to keep your team on track without breaking the bank.

In a free project management tool, you’ll typically be able to create various projects, come-up with to-do lists, assign tasks to team members, and track a project’s progress until completion. Paid project management tools offer more storage, more projects, and more seats for the team. But for small teams, a free project management tool will do the trick.
The low buy-in makes it a natural choice. With free project management software, your team can collaborate much better, reducing the risk of miscommunications and keeping everyone up to speed on team-wide projects. It’s also helpful for individual team members. They can use it to boost their productivity and ensure they’re on track.
To streamline your process and ensure everyone on your team is on the same page, take a look at these exceptional free project management tools.

1. HubSpot Project Management Software

HubSpot’s project management tool includes task creation, task automation, and pre-made to-do lists. It’s specifically designed for marketing teams and integrates seamlessly with Marketing Hub. With this tool, you can keep track of tasks alongside your marketing projects — so that both are integrated and not managed on different tools.
Features include:

Task management right alongside your marketing workflows
File attachment capabilities to keep track of important assets
Pre-made to-do lists to immediately launch projects
Custom templates for recurring projects
Landing pages, emails, and workflows available in the same tool

Pricing: Free with HubSpot Marketing Hub
2. Project.co

Project.co is a client-facing project management system that connects your team with your clients’ teams in one place. Each piece of work you do can be set up as its own project, with its own discussion feed, notes, tasks, team, and payments. You can also record time spent on each project.
A variety of different task and project views are available, including calendar, scheduler, and Kanban view — to give you an overview of the work that’s happening within your team.
Features include:

Ability to quickly add/invite both internal and external users
Discussion feed for each project — with email alerts (and the ability to reply by email without logging in)
Variety of task views — which can be filtered — giving your whole team, each department, and even individual users their daily/weekly task lists
Reporting tools that measure your most and least profitable or efficient projects
Ability to integrate payment solutions and quickly, securely take card payments through the system

Pricing:
Free for 14 days; $10/user/month
3. Toggl Plan

Toggl Plan is an effective project management tool to automate your task delegation process and visualize which project tasks have been completed, and which haven’t. If your team often collaborates with other departments on projects, this might be a useful tool for you.
Features include:

Gantt-chart visualization to track important deadlines and projects
Integrations with Slack, Github, Evernote, and others
Team collaboration option through shared calendars and task notes

Pricing: Free for 14 days; $8/user/month (Team); $13.35/user/month (Business)
4. ClickUp

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ClickUp provides a few impressive features to customize the all-in-one project management tool to suit your team members, including the option for each user to choose one of three different ways to view their projects and tasks depending on individual preference. If your marketing team overlaps with sales, design, or development, this is an effective solution, as it provides features for all of those four teams.
Features include:

The ability to organize your projects based on priority, and assign tasks to groups
The option to set goals to remind teams what they’re aiming to accomplish
Google Calendar two-way sync
An easy way to filter, search, sort, and customize options for managing specific tasks
Activity stream with mentions capability
Image mockups
57 integrated apps

Pricing: Free; $5/user/month
5. nTask

Another free software that comes with a variety of features for project and task managers is nTask. This program has a couple of free-range tools for anyone looking to work as an individual or a professional project manager.
nTask supports multiple projects and task creation. Users can also define team leader roles, budget, milestone and time tracking criteria that are specific to relevant projects. Understanding the needs of advanced project managers, nTask also offers an interactive Gantt chart feature. It can be personalized by a simple drag and drop mechanism to align the project to ongoing real-life changes.
Features include:

A powerful in-app collaboration system
Integration with Slack and many other third-party apps
The ability to invite stakeholders to view ongoing projects
Resource management
Team management via an admin-controlled process
Multiple workspaces dedicated to different projects and tasks

Pricing: Free (Basic); $2.99/user/month (Premium); $7.99/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)
6. Teamwork

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Teamwork is a project management software and collaboration platform that helps in-house and remote teams stay organized and productive. Each project lets you easily upload files, assign tasks and deadlines, and chat with teammates. By centralizing your project information, you can help eliminate more misunderstandings and missed deadlines.
Features include:

Easy integration with HubSpot

Teamwork Chat Instant Messenger to help you stay in your workflow and be most productive
Time tracking to understand capacity and where a team spends their time
Dashboards, Substasks, and Milestones to help track progress of projects

Pricing: Free; $10/user/month (Deliver); $18/user/month (Grow); Custom (Enterprise
7. Freedcamp

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Freedcamp is a feature-rich project management tool that’s designed for personal and professional use. Each project has its own tasks, milestones, files, discussions, and timelines, as well as an issue tracker and calendar. The dashboard gives you a clear, concise overview of what’s going on in your team, including activity, projects, and tasks.
Features include:

Message-board discussion feed, with the ability to create and carry out discussions on any topic
Powerful calendar view that lays out all upcoming events
Third-party integrations including Google Drive, Google Calendar, Dropbox and more

Pricing: Free; $1.49/user/month (MInimalist); $7.49/user/month (Business); $16.99/user/month (Enterprise)
8. Asana

Asana, one of the most well-known project management solutions, has a clean and user-friendly interface. The all-in-one tool lets you create boards to visualize which stage your project is in, and use reporting to keep track of finished tasks and tasks that need your attention.
Features include:

The ability to create templates to automate mundane tasks
The ability to collaborate and share information across the team, privately and securely
The option to set security controls and designate admins
Over 100 integrations for a more efficient start-to-finish process
The ability to create custom project fields, share documents, and filter tasks

HubSpot integration for seamless syncing of workflows and contact activity

Pricing: Free (Basic); $10.99/user/month (Premium); $24.99/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)
9. Monday.com

Monday.com, a project management tool that also offers HR and IT tools, allows you to create team member status updates so your remote and flexible teams know their coworkers’ schedules. It allows you to easily access project updates at-a-glance so that nothing falls between the cracks.
Features include:

Customizable workflows to prioritize your team’s needs and take care of menial tasks
Gantt chart for visualizing due dates and project timelines
Integrations with popular tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Calendar
Team member status updates for remote or flexible team members

HubSpot integration so that everyone can collaborate on contact and deal management

Pricing: Free for 14 days; $8/user/month (Basic); $10/user/month (Standard); $16/user/month (Pro); Custom (Enterprise)
10. Wrike

Wrike stands out as an exceptional project management tool for teams who want the option to customize workflows and edit and revise projects from within the platform itself. The tool offers the ability to color code and layer calendars, and its mobile app allows colleagues to update project information on-the-go. You can add comments to sections, videos, or documents, and create custom fields to export data most relevant to your company.
Features include:

Security measures to ensure only authorized personnel can access information
Activity Stream to allow project managers to micromanage small tasks, see activities in chronological order, and tag team members
The option to unfollow activities to declutter your own personal Stream
Email and calendar synchronization
Built-in editing and approval features

Pricing: Free; $9.80/user/month (Professional); $24.80/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)
11. Paymo

Paymo’s free version only allows access for one user, but if you’ve got a small team or you’re a freelancer, this could be an efficient option for tracking billable hours and invoicing clients. Along with tracking finances, Paymo also allows you to organize project timelines, create to-do lists, and stay on top of your budgets for multiple projects at once.
Features include:

Kanban boards for easy, at-a-glance project updates
Time tracking to keep everyone on the same schedule
File sharing and Adobe CC extension for easy sharing of assets
Timesheet reporting to keep stakeholders in the loop
Project templates to jumpstart projects with a click

Pricing: Free; $9.95/user/month (Small Office); $15.79/user/month (Business)
12. Trello

Trello is a drag-and-drop tool that lets you move projects — personal, or professional — through workflow stages, all the way to completion.
You define what those stages are — whether it’s work project statuses like ‘On Hold,’ or personal project categories like ‘Things to buy!’ — with tasks represented as ‘cards.’ Each card can be given a name, assigned to an individual, given a due date — and have files, such as images, attached to it.
Features include:

Templates for a range of different project types, from business to education to personal productivity
Ability to add attachments such as images to any card on any board
Customise your workflow stages to reflect your actual process
Simple drag-and-drop movement of cards through workflow stages

HubSpot integration for syncing marketing, sales, and service workflows into to-do lists

Pricing: Free; $10/user/month; Custom (Enterprise)
13. Todoist

Todoist is a simple but powerful tool that lets you create powerful, interactive to-do lists. To-do items can be assigned priority levels, assigned to people in your team and flagged — with customizable reminders (although these are a premium feature). Actionable items can also be categorised into different projects, making a simple, easily understandable structure where each ‘list’ has a title (project name) and a series of actions. This all makes it an extremely flexible, customizable tool to get work done.
Features include:

Template lists to inspire and guide you
Recurring due dates for regularly recurring tasks
Productivity visualizations and ‘Karma’ points for completed tasks and streaks
Labels, notification and discussion feeds to keep you organized

Pricing: Free; $3/user/month (Pro); $5/user/month (Business)
14. MeisterTask

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MeisterTask is a project management tool that allows you to create Kanban boards, set recurring tasks, track project times, and create custom fields. You can automatically import data from other tools such as Trello and Asana, allowing you to get immediately to work without losing time.
Features include:

Up to 3 projects on the free version
File attachments for projects
Custom project icons to make tasks stand out
Time tracking so that no deadlines fall through the cracks

Pricing: Free; $8.25/user/month (Pro); $20.75/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)
15. Bitrix24

Britrix24’s project management software includes Kanban boards, Gantt charts, task counters for easy prioritization, and reports for analyzing the time intensiveness of different tasks. You can also create to-do lists within tasks.
Features include:

Recurring tasks for easy task creation and automation
Integration with Billable Hours, which is especially useful if you work with freelancers
Task statuses to easily keep track of progress
Monthly reports on time spent on tasks

Pricing: Free; $19/month (Start+); $55/month (CRM+ and Project+); $79/month (Standard Business Plan); $159/month (Professional Business Plan)
16. Airtable

Airtable is a customizable spreadsheet and database app that can be used to create a project management tool for your team. Its project tracker template allows you to easily manage projects in a familiar spreadsheet-like environment, making it ideal for Excel and Google Sheets enthusiasts.
Features include:

Subtask creation within tasks
Ability to assign tasks and establish time estimates
Additional templates for keeping remote teams aligned, such as a team hub and asset tracker

Highly customizable for different teams
Integration with popular tools such as HubSpot, Asana, Dropbox, Google Workspace, and Slack

Pricing: Free; $10/user/month (Plus); $20/user/month (Pro); Custom (Enterprise)
Streamline Workflows with a Project Management Tool
Using a project management app will empower your team to work more efficiently and collaborate more seamlessly. With hurdles out of the way, you can guarantee that your team can focus on what matters: bringing in more leads, selling to more prospects, and empowering more customers to grow alongside your business.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

This article is part of a larger series that focuses on diversity and equity in marketing. As a company, we are committed to identifying actions we can take in the fight against racism and injustice, and elevating BBIPOC voices is paramount to inspiring change. Follow along and read other posts in this series here.

This post is authored by Hava Billen, Classroom Educator for Selligent Marketing Cloud. 
The first step in a marketing campaign lifecycle is to identify the target group and adapt the offer to match the audience characteristics.
Target group identification has evolved. Lately, technology has enabled marketers to collect a tremendous amount of customer data. Thanks to marketing automation platforms, customer behavior tracking and analytics tools, and customer data platforms, marketers have access to a 360-degree view of the customer.
Collectively, big data, combined with new methodologies for data processing and analysis, has enabled marketers to deploy new models for audience segmentation with predictive capabilities based on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.
This AI goes as far as predicting future consumer purchase behaviors, thanks to browser cookies, mobile geo-location positioning, online browsing history, social media sharing, brand likes, and online shopping experiences.
Hyper-personalization is expected by all consumers
The hyper-personalization concept, in essence, provides an opportunity for marketers to deliver real-time, anywhere-anytime content and customer experience at an individual level.
Marketers today know way more about customer identities, lifestyles, behaviors, habits, and preferences than customers know about themselves.
Yet research by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that 54% of consumers surveyed do not feel culturally represented in online advertising. And 71% of consumers expect brands to promote diversity and inclusion in their online advertising.  
The analysis shows that there are still big issues around representation of what are called “minority” groups:

Women are 14.1 times more likely to be shown in revealing outfits and 6.9 times more visually or verbally objectified.
Men are 1.4 times less likely to be shown happy and 2.4 times more likely to be shown angry.
Only 1.1 % of online ads researched represent people with disabilities.
Only 0.3%  of online ads included the LGBTQ+ target group in their ads (let us not forget that this particular group has immense purchasing power).

These numbers clearly tell us that there is an enormous opportunity for marketers to tap into. In an automated world, get human – and let your target groups identify themselves with your brand efforts.
Today more than ever, the case is compelling! It is evident that online campaigns that have more diverse representation have a higher recall rate: 90% of ads that featured a diversity strategy experienced higher recall rate.

How can Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion act as a brand differentiator?
Firstly, what is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)?
Diversity ensures that a marketer invites everyone to the party. In other words, the message and offer are designed for a diverse target group.
Equity in marketing terms can be interpreted as being fair to your audience. This fairness can be manifested via delivering your offer on diverse channels so that everyone has the same chance at that offer. This part of the DEI concept is relative innate for marketers; however, there are still some gaps to be addressed (e.g., an elderly person who is not on Instagram or TikTok may never have the opportunity to learn more about the trendy Gen Z-focused offers on healthy food, yoga retreats, or online shopping experiences.)
Inclusion enables that everyone has the same chance for consuming an offer. A visually impaired person can read the offer; a person with hearing loss can understand what you communicate in your videos; a gay couple can relate to your “romantic couple weekend away” banner; a person who practices a different religion does not feel insulted by your assumption that Easter is a celebration for everyone.
Why should we be talking about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)?
Let’s continue with some fact-checking. In the summer of 2019, The Female Quotient partnered with Google and Ipsos and surveyed more than 3,000 consumers in the US from various backgrounds to get insights about brand perception, based on their advertising and marketing diversity and inclusion efforts. At a high level, the outcome was:

People are more likely to purchase a product if they consider it diverse and inclusive. 
64% of those surveyed took action after seeing a diverse and inclusive ad.
69% of Black consumers say they are more likely to purchase from brands with advertising that positively reflects their race/ethnicity.
71% of LGBTQ consumers said they are more likely to interact with an online ad that authentically represents their sexual orientation.

Creating a marketing strategy that incorporates diversity, equity, and inclusion practices can bring more loyal customers and expose your brand to a much larger market.
Consider, too, that 70% of consumers expect brands to take a public stand on social and political issues. “Like a Girl,” a 2015 Super Bowl spot for Procter & Gamble’s Always brand, is one that jumps immediately to mind as a good example. Here are some others:

Nike’s recent campaigns have amplified the voices of underrepresented communities with its series of ads under the campaign titled “Until We All Win,” which aims to uplift indigenous people, LGBTQIA, and athletes.

Dove has always been a brand that supported women of color and women of all sizes. The brand’s “Real Beauty” campaign has attempted to disrupt the standard of beauty which is portrayed every day on media.

L’Oréal Paris launched a video campaign, “Your Skin, Your Story,” featuring a diverse blend of individuals and illustrating their individual skin stories, empowering women to feel comfortable in their skin.

Vodafone has also expressed its support for diversity with its campaign “Belong,” where it celebrates diversity.

When a brand takes a stand on DEI, it immediately builds a positive brand perception in consumers’ eyes. This links to an increase in brand effectiveness, and significantly lifts purchase intent and loyalty.

Marketing practices that serve diverse audiences are inclusive and enable everyone to have the same chance to consume an offer.
Marketers have great potential to tap into diverse groups of people and match their needs by implementing marketing practices that are diverse, inclusive, and give everyone a fair chance of accessing the offer.
How can you put this into practice?

Build offers that are accessible in your email marketing, so you can reach an audience from wide backgrounds, capacities, languages, and cultures.

Highlight real stories of people from all walks of life. Storytelling is a powerful tool in marketing. Each customer is a unique individual with a unique story and motivation to consume a product or service. Include this in your brand. Tell a story that authentically speaks the language of your consumers – and spark even more interest among others.

Include all faces in your campaign visuals and video assets: including POC (People of Color), LGBTQIA, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z.

Use non-assumptive language in your marketing and graphics.

Use diverse channels to reach the widest possible audience and ensure that everyone has the same chance to access your offer.

Empower underrepresented groups. Build campaigns and offers which show support for these groups.

Abolish prejudices by highlighting the damage prejudice does and the exclusion it creates.

Develop diverse audience personas to ensure your marketing efforts do not operate from a homogenous persona point of view, but that they reflect the diverse characteristics that are important to your audience and/or your business.

Consumers expect brands to be inclusive and reflect the reality of their lives in advertising.
On an ending note, organizations with inclusive cultures are two times more likely to exceed financial targets, three times as likely to be high performing, six times more likely to be innovative and agile, and eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes.
Wrap up
Finally, if a marketer wants to serve a diverse market, it must embrace diversity from within. It must walk the talk and sensitize its own company to find new diverse sources of talent to understand customers better and thereby increase sales.
After all, isn’t this how diverse ideas, innovative solutions, and multiple points of view are surfaced?

Hava Billen is a Selligent Marketing Cloud classroom trainer, educating companies how to use our intelligent marketing automation platform to better engage with their customers. Hava loves to analyze social behavior and market trends from a consumer and business point of view. She has spent the last 10 years travelling the world, working in multi-lingual, multi-cultural teams. This has allowed her to learn a lot about adapting to changes and intercultural diversity from a work and social perspective.
In her free time, Hava enjoys sports, outdoor activities, exploring new cuisines, wine, art, learning new languages, reading books, listening to podcasts, and laughing with her friends.  Probably the weirdest thing she has ever done is to sign up for beginners figure ice skating class with 5-6 year old ladies. “Being on the skate rink with uplifting music is one of the most relaxing activities for me,” she says. “Although when I took ice skating classes with the group of young ladies, I felt really embarrassed falling down and being watched by their parents.” It’s the price to pay when you crave learning things at an older age. 
Like many millennials, Hava cares about the environment and likes to contribute by choosing a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle 90% of her time. She also likes exploring brands that are eco-friendly and sustainable. She also occasionally engages in social causes such as the protection of children with vulnerable backgrounds, especially in her home country of Bulgaria.

Visit this page to see more in the series, or check back in a week for our next guest post. 
CM Group is a family of global marketing technology brands including Campaign Monitor, CM Commerce, Delivra, Emma, Liveclicker, Sailthru and Vuture. By joining together these leading brands, CM Group offers a variety of world-class solutions that can be used by marketers at any level. Headquartered in Nashville, TN, CM Group has United States offices in Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, and global offices in Australia, London, New Zealand, and Uruguay. 
The post Why Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity is a Key Differentiator in Your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Conversion funnels are a fundamental concept in sales. Personally, I like to visualize the funnel as that big scary slide you wanted to try as a kid. You saw your friends whizzing down, which sparked your interest. You watched how much fun they were having, doing your research. And then the benefits of having fun outweighed your fear, so you climbed up and flew down.

Customers take a similar journey through your company’s conversion funnel when evaluating whether or not to buy from you. You have to pique their interest, build trust, and encourage them to take action.
While the customer journey is more complex than my slide analogy, understanding how conversion funnels work can improve this flow. It can help you optimize your funnel, attract more leads, convert them to customers, and boost your bottom line. But all that requires reducing as much friction as possible. (Think: sliding down with slippery clothes instead of bare skin).
In this post, I’ll explain what conversion funnels are and how they impact your customer journey. Then, you’ll learn how to optimize your funnel to increase the number of people who make it to your conversion point at the bottom.
All leads begin at the top of the funnel. As they learn more about your business, they move down and get closer to purchasing your product or service. This conversion process is called a funnel because companies often have more leads than they do customers, making the top of the funnel a larger pool of people than the bottom.
Understanding how people flow through your conversion funnel is essential to being an effective marketer or salesperson because it helps you engage leads, answer questions about your business, and address concerns. It also lets you organize leads into categories and create customer touchpoints that can entice each group to convert.
That’s why every funnel should be designed for how your customers buy, not how you sell. The focus is on providing such a great experience within the customer journey that you convince them to convert.
Before diving into the details of how to analyze and optimize your funnel, we need to talk about an important aspect of this process: the customer journey.
Customer Journey
The customer journey complements the conversion funnel, but it’s not the same thing. Unlike the generalized, linear conversion funnel, customer journey maps show the individual and circuitous paths people take from the moment they discover your brand to the time they make a purchase.
Let’s say you’re a food blogger who sells cookbooks. Here’s how your customers’ journeys can differ.

Customer A sees and clicks on your banner ad, visits your blog, reads an article, signs up for your newsletter, gets a discount email, and purchases a cookbook.
Customer B sees your cookbook in a bookshop, buys it, makes the recipes, visits your blog, and subscribes to your newsletter.

The outcomes for Customer A and B are essentially the same, but the journeys and touchpoints are different. So if you know the different ways people enter your funnel, you can optimize for those entry points. That way, you can meet potential buyers where they are and entice them to convert.
That said, most funnels have similar points that ultimately lead to conversion. So let’s look at an example to get a mental picture of this process.
Conversion Funnel Visualization
The top-middle-bottom funnel is a classic model used by sales teams, which focuses on sparking interest, informing potential customers, convincing them to purchase, and building loyalty so they become repeat buyers.
HubSpot has transitioned to thinking of the customer journey as less of a funnel and more of a flywheel — building more momentum as customers move through. Here’s a comparison of a tradition funnel next to a more updated flywheel approach to conversion:

Need a bit more of an explanation? Check out this video introduction to the flywheel below:

But let’s get back to talking about tradition conversion funnels:

Top of the funnel (TOFU): This is the awareness phase. A potential customer enters the TOFU when they engage with your brand, oftentimes through your website, an ad, an email, or social media.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU): This is the consideration phase. The potential customer knows about your brand and engages with it in order to learn more. They may sign up for your email newsletter, follow you on social media, or download guides and templates.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): This is the conversion phase. A prospect is here right before they purchase, which means you’ve given them good information and relevant touchpoints. Help them convert by making it easy to purchase, offering a trial, outlining pricing, or sending a discount for their abandoned shopping cart.

While some conversion funnels are simple, others can be incredibly complex. The detail of your funnel depends on your sales process — the longer your sales cycle, the more complex your funnel. If you have a short sales cycle, your funnel tends to be simpler.
Think about how long it takes to sell $2,000 B2B software versus a $20 t-shirt. The software purchase usually requires months of sales calls, marketing materials, FAQs, and demos. Each of those is a specific point in your conversion funnel. But potential buyers may only need five minutes to figure out that the t-shirt is the right color and fit before purchasing. The touchpoints required here are taking it off the rack and trying it on.
To figure out how complex your funnel is, you can look at the data and perform an analysis. This will help you flush out each part of your customer journey to create a unique visual representation of your funnel.
Conversion Funnel Analysis
Funnels are full of barriers and friction. Analyzing your funnel helps you visualize the flow of potential customers across each point.
You can see key traffic sources and high-exit pages to get a feel for how people end up in each stage of the funnel.
It’s also a way to notice barriers that cause people to leave a page before they convert. If you see a high drop-off rate on one page, for example, you’ll know to prioritize that as you work toward optimizing your funnel.
To understand your funnel, follow these steps for in-depth analysis:
1. Look for high-traffic pages with high drop-off and conversion rates.
High-traffic pages hold a plethora of useful information. Not only are these the pages people see the most, but they’re also where people decide to stay or go. Look at the pages where people drop off (aka leave) and where they convert (take your intended action). Some metrics to collect are:

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Drop-Off Rate
Conversion Rate
Number of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
MQLs to Customer Conversion Rate
Conversion Rate Per Channel (i.e., social, email, and paid search)

2. Discover where your best customers come from.
Not all leads are the same. Some people drop off near the top of the funnel while others make it all the way down. That’s why tracking leads is so important. When you know where your high-quality leads come from, you can analyze that touchpoint or channel to see what you’re doing right. Ask yourself:

How is this touchpoint different from other touchpoints?
What information is resonating with people?
What are the barriers or friction (if any)?
How many steps do people have to go through before converting?

Identifying what you’re doing right in your funnel is just as important as figuring out what you’re doing wrong. If you need help digging into the data, check out these sales funnel tools or look into heatmap and session recording tools for information on how people navigate your pages.
3. Create an optimization plan.
After you figure out where people are dropping off and converting, it’s time to make an optimization plan. This should include the goals you want to focus on (i.e., more leads, newsletter signups, demos, or software purchases).
Goals let you determine what you want from each touchpoint within your funnel so you can measure whether it’s working or not.
After your funnel analysis, you’ll have a list of priority touchpoints that need to be optimized. Make sure to focus on the areas with the biggest drop-off rates first.
Conversion Funnel Optimization
Every part of your conversion funnel can be optimized to increase the number of people who turn into customers. Think of conversation funnel optimization as finding out what motivates, blocks, and persuades people so you can give them the best experience possible on their unique journey.
To optimize effectively, you need to think about how to give each customer what they want at each phase of the funnel. Using the phases outlined above, here’s what to consider at each step along the customer journey.
1. TOFU: Awareness
Issues at the top of your funnel? Take a look at how you attract new leads. Compare every channel that brings in customers (i.e., social media, search engines, your blog, and paid ads) to see which attracts the most people.
If you’re unsure how customers found you, send out a survey to ask. Look for trends in how people find new brands and put more effort in your best channels. Just make sure you’re attracting the people in your target audience.
2. MOFU: Consideration
Potential customers made it to the middle of your funnel, but it’s your job to keep them moving toward the bottom.
If you’re having trouble with this phase, look at how people learn about your business and engage with your site. Is it easy for people to navigate your site? Or sign up for your email list? Do you have relevant, rich content? Do you offer pricing and product information? Is it easy to get questions answered?
Depending on your barriers, consider these ideas for improvement:

Product videos and photos
FAQ page
Whitepapers, case studies, or blog posts
Filters and search options
Newsletter capture
Discounts
Check pages for loading speed and broken elements

3. BOFU: Conversion
As the final stop for potential buyers, this is the phase to turn them into customers. You should remove as much friction as possible and encourage people to take the final steps to convert.
Some ways to optimize this final part of your funnel is to make sure product or service pages are fully built out with interesting descriptions, videos, and photos. Consider your checkout process to see if people have issues with payments or abandoned carts. Make it simple for people to compare pricing and clearly outline all product features. You can also send specific BOFU emails or create ads to remind people of their desire to convert.
Think your job is done once a customer converts? Wrong. While you may have pulled a customer through your conversion funnel, there are plenty of opportunities to re-engage them. Not only is customer retention essential for growing your business, but it’s five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain a current customer.
So, once your customers make it through the funnel, invite them to sign up for a new webinar series, download additional templates, send promotions, join a loyalty club, or follow you on social media.
Find what makes sense for your particular sales cycle and use your existing content and channels to stay in touch. Make sure they value your business and want to come back because you never know who they’ll introduce to the top of that funnel.